Jaffle Cakes
by Black Waltz 0
Summary: Chua esper Jafa Jiff gets into a... situation.


**Jaffle Cakes**

**By Black Waltz 0**

Jafa Jiff wiggled uncomfortably upon the wooden box he was forced to stand on, shuffling his feet and arching his spine a little to alleviate the persistent pain in his lower back. Red juice was drying on his nose and all he could smell was the off, slightly sweet whiff of rotting tomatoes. His shoulders ached. He moaned.

_'Six more hours_.' Jafa told himself sternly, glaring at the sticky-beaks and nosy stupid people staring at him as they passed by. A lowborn child with his finger so far up one nostril the chua would have thought the kid was busy scrambling his brains made a face at him, so Jafa bristled and screeched back. His mother was quick to whisk him away after that, tutting and tsking, so Jafa made a face of his own with the eye rolling an added extra. '_Only six more hours. Can do this.'_

Someone slightly out of his peripheral vision threw a wilted cabbage at him. He heard the chortling, almost brain-dead laughter of the culprit close by but the stocks he was trapped in were too heavy and too bolted to the courtyard of Illium for him to turn his head all that much or rotate his wrists, or pretty much anything that didn't involve his legs or his tail. Jafa shook his head wildly to the best of his ability, flicking his ears to get the vegetation off. "Stupid human!" The chua screamed. "Jafa will get you while you sleep! Make you think wife is squirg!"

Once again the ginger chua focused his sights on the brass padlock positioned maddeningly out of reach, just an inch or two away from his right paw. His little grasping fingers twisted painfully in their wooden shackle to grope in the direction of the lock, but there was no way he could reach. Not really. There was still too much empty space between his claws and the metal, and really, even if he _could_ reach it what was he going to do? He didn't have a lock pick.

Jafa focused his powerful, staccato mind on the concept of the padlock. He tried to perceive it in all totality, its golden shape, its volume and density, and the comparatively simple locking mechanism deep, deep inside. If he had a lock pick, like one made from the force of his will, he tried to visualize it sliding into the keyhole, lifting up the lock, pressing down on the important part, and rotating… listening for the click…

Outside of his head the lock holding the chua's stocks shut seemed to lift slightly of its own accord, emitting a glow the faintest hue of pale blue. It shook a bit, like someone was holding or twisting, just as Jafa furrowed his brow and closed his eyes, pushing it a little bit more…

"Almost there, almost… and…"

A little girl laughed and pulled his tail. Well, it was more of a yank, really. Jafa shrieked again and peddled his legs in place, trying vainly to wrench his long orange-and-cream tail free. He clenched both his teeth and his hands, but it was too late. He lost his grip on the lock with the swirling, brilliant tendrils of his mind and it fell down against the stocks again; still whole and taunting him yet again.

"_No!_ Jafa will make you pay for this!" He howled.

"Ha ha, stupid fat jabbit." The highborn, someday lady-to-be tittered cruelly. Maybe she'd have a spot in the ICI someday, or maybe she'd be dead. Jafa hoped fervently for the latter.

She yanked on him again and he felt his spine stretch. Jafa wished death upon her a second time. If he could just wiggle an arm free maybe that might be enough to direct his esper abilities and he could force her head to explode, just pop right off like an overripe zit or have her tiny useless cassian brains melt out through her ears…

"Hey hey! What little girl doing? Not supposed to touch criminals! Can throw fruit at them, but not touch! Don't want to get in trouble, yes?"

"Awww, phooey…"

The imprisoned chua's ears perked up somewhat when he recognized a familiar voice behind him and likewise the annoying brat's grasp on his posterior was reluctantly released. Jafa couldn't see what was going on back there but he yanked his tail back like it had been grazed in an industrial accident and tucked it behind one leg for safekeeping; trying to look over his stocks in vain and adding; "Yes! Go now before Jafa adds little girl to revenge list! Is big list, but Jafa will fit you in somehow!"

He heard the cassian child climb down from the raised platform that was the stockyard and trot away. Jafa Jiff fumed in silence for a few moments longer, festering in his anger until the voice in his head told him again; _'Just six more hours. Six more, then you go home. And plot revenge.'_

While he was thinking on this another chua walked around the small wooden stock that housed the only chua up for display for today (the other was a lowborn farmer who had managed to fall asleep on his feet somehow, squatting peacefully with an oafish smile on his face). The chua was smaller than Jafa and had yellow fur whereas Jafa's was a ginger shade he was endlessly vain about, with smaller ears and a coarse whiskery moustache framing a pair of large yellow buck teeth. He blinked his simple, beady little eyes at the bigger chua when Jafa inevitably recognized him.

He would have jumped up and down in surprise if he could. "Watzi!" Jafa cried, stamping his feet again. "Watzi! You're here! Let Jafa out!"

Watzi Hoo jammed his paws into the pockets of his worn, oil-stained pants. "What did Jafa do now?"

Jafa sniffed haughtily. He did it in such a way that it likely would have made a highborn nod their head in begrudging approval. "Jafa is innocent of everything. Everyone is guilty. Guilty of being stupid!"

"Watzi heard Jafa scammed an important lord. Told him he can cure smoking habit with ESP sleeping trick."

"Jafa can!" The orange chua shouted, then huffed. "Is easy trick. Stupid lord just not pay Jafa what Jafa is owed."

"And then you make lord think he is giant chicken?"

"Lord Bettucius Cheapyshire bring chicken thoughts upon himself with idea of being cheap." The chua said in dire seriousness. It had brought him twenty four hours trapped in the stocks while loyal Dominion citizens threw fruit at him all day, but even if he could have the chance to consider his actions a second time he probably would have done exactly the same thing. It had already been eighteen hours so far and he could endure. Only six more to go.

Watzi thought about this for a second and then snickered wickedly. "Ohh-oh. Chicken thoughts. Cheapy-cheep. Clever."

"Watzi is clever! Brought tools? Pick lock right away and get Jafa out of here!" Jafa demanded, desperate. His chua compatriot was a motorcycle technician and although he was also an esper like himself the golden chua had a wealth of more technical knowledge than he did. So still not as smart as Jafa, but he would have to make do.

"Oh no. No no no." Watzi replied at once, shaking his head and waving his paws at him in almost a shooing motion. "Watzi is not going to get put into stocks right next to Jafa. Not worth it. If Watzi were in prison and Jafa were free Watzi knows Jafa would laugh and laugh and not do anything."

Jafa wrinkled his nose at him in distaste. He would have been outraged in any other circumstance but frankly he knew that his friend was right. He'd probably make a day of it. Bring his datachron and take pictures. Probably go and dig up some really stinky vegetables to hurl too.

"So Watzi is here to laugh at Jafa." Jafa surmised.

Watzi laughed, then realized he was laughing and stopped right away. "What? No! Watzi is good friend! Will not get in trouble for fellow chua, but will stay a while and keep Jafa company. Just got off work, so Watzi is very hungry. Might eat a snack here to pass time."

The mere mention of the word 'snack' sent a violent rumble through Jafa's empty belly. The chua groaned. He hadn't eaten since the day previous and he'd only barely been able to stave off hunger just by not thinking about it and refusing to look at the various Illium citizens wandering by munching on lunches and sandwiches, or take-out food from restaurants and marketplaces elsewhere in town.

Watzi Hoo heard that tummy grumble even from a few feet away. His large, goofy grin spread even wider at the sound. As Jafa's silent, angry, accusing eyes bored burning holes into his front the yellow chua pulled a foil package from out of his carry bag and unwrapped it with delicate, ceremonial reverence, releasing a toasted delicious scent into the air that was way, _way_ better than the rotted fruit and veg smeared all over the ground around them.

Jafa's jaw fell open and his eyes widened in surprise. Watzi had a jaffle cake, sort of like a toasted pastry similar to a waffle and coated in dark, sweet chocolate and orange jam. It looked like it'd been freshly toasted and the chocolate was warm and gooey and, and- by the Scions! It was Jafa's most favorite food! He knew! Watzi knew! How could he not have known?

The smaller chua plunked himself down on the wooden platform before his imprisoned friend, still bent over and standing on a wooden box so he could reach the stocks properly (a vigilant guard had chuckled to herself when she'd had to move it there). Watzi began to tear into the treat with the joyful abandon of the truly hungry, tearing into it with little licks and bites and mutterings of how good it was.

"…Mmf, good. 'Sho good. Oomf… shweet…"

Meanwhile, Jafa was in tears. His stomach was gnawing on itself from the inside out and he was weak from hunger, frustration and the soreness of not moving about enough, but this was the worst torment of all. Every bite shrunk down the size of the temptation before him and he could have just died then and there, because it was too cruel. Way too cruel. His paws opened and seemed to reach out towards his friend, or more like his snack, but that wasn't about to get him anywhere.

Soon enough Watzi's jaffle cake was almost all gone. By the end of it all that was left was an empty shell of foil and one last chunk about the size of Watzi's paw, congealing in its own chocolate and sweet orange marmalade. The whiskers around the chua's mouth were flecked with chocolate and he tried to lick away the stain around his mouth, then Watzi burped loudly and patted his small, skinny tummy.

"Good treat, was very good, but don't think Watzi can finish whole thing. Might have to throw away. Well, Watzi must get home anyway. Have plenty of work to do!" He seemed to look about for an empty garbage bin, but finding nothing the chua seemed to sigh and wander away.

Of course, Watzi was also keeping half a beady eye on Jafa in his prison and the sweet, amusing tears pouring down the ginger chua's face, his big 'ol ears drooped down lower than any chua could possibly had made them before. His nose was running a little and he was biting his lower lip in suffering. It made Watzi want to laugh. Haha. Hahaha.

He liked Jafa. He was a good friend, but it was amusing to see such a proud chua get taken down a peg. Jafa should know. He would have thought the very same.

So, Watzi stopped just as he was leaving and patted Jafa Jiff fondly on the head, taking care to dislodge a wedge of lemon that had gotten stuck in his friend's hair somehow. He chuckled out loud; reedy chua giggles slipping out from behind his big silly teeth. "Don't worry. Only a trick. Watzi can trick too." He said.

He crammed the last big piece of his gooey jaffle cake into Jafa's gob. The imprisoned chua let him do it in abject relief and release of suffering, hoping that it would quell the angry voice in his stomach for a while. He also thought about biting Watzi's paw really, _really_ hard, but he didn't want a mouthful of blood. Not when he was starving to death.

Watzi petted him again and left a pawprint of melted chocolate on Jafa's head, like a ridiculous birthmark. A more articulate cassian would have remarked that he was inviting mayhem and madness upon himself by taunting his vengeful and extremely volatile friend, but it would be okay. The blond chua couldn't wait to see what Jafa would come up with in revenge.

"Watziiiiii…" Jafa growled lowly once he had swallowed, almost like a dagun.

"Muster fortitude!" Watzi exclaimed as he took that as his cue and scampered away. "Only five hours to go!"

"WATZIIIIIII!" Came the echoing howl, but he was already gone.

_-fin_


End file.
